Freckles in the Snow
by SouthernMFDemocraticRepublican
Summary: All Elisa wanted was for Fred and George to leave her alone today. Or so she thought. Maybe all she needed was to be shown how to have fun. One snowy day in her first year changed everything.


Elisa was not having a good day.

And it was all due to two people.

Fred and George Weasley.

First they had set a trap outside the Slytherin dorms. A trip wire that caused Elisa to land right on her face, books crowding her arms. She had to go to Madame Pomfrey to get her nose fixed up.

It had taken so long she missed breakfast and found herself rushing to her potions class. She walked in a few minutes late, and man, if looks could kill, Snape would have made her drop dead on the spot. Lucky enough she was competent enough in potions that she picked up that day's potion before anyone else, seemingly getting back in Snape's good graces before the double class had ended.

She went to lunch. And she _thought_ that was when it was all over for the day. Everything had gone back to normal.

But then she felt three sets of eyes on her. She looked up at the Gryffindor table and saw the Weasley devils and their friend, Leo or something, looking at her and snickering.

She quickly opened up her compact mirror and looked at her face and hair. It was all normal. She looked back up and they were practically doubled over laughing.

She was tired of the day already, so much so that she suddenly stood up and marched over to them.

"We are sevenths years, can you please _grow up."_

"Why, where's the fun in that?" George said to her, "Right George."

"Nice try, you're George."

The three students' jaws dropped.

"You can tell us apart?" Fred asked her.

"Of course," she said exacerbated, "it so obvious. Now please leave me alone."

With that she turned around and stormed out of the Great Hall, her best friend running after her.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Jenna said to her, laughing really hard.

"I'm just having a bad day and it's all because of _them."_

"How _can_ you tell them apart? Not even their mother can."

"I don't know. Why does it matter?"

"Because no one can tell them apart. How do you know."

"I don't know, Fred's hair is a little darker. Fred has more freckles and his smile is crooked."

"That's weird."

"What?"

"That you notice things like that. No one does."

"I guess I'm just observant."

"What color are my eyes?"

Elisa couldn't answer.

"What color are Fred's eyes?"

"... brown." Elisa said quietly.

"You've known me how long? Nine years? You've known Fred for seven and you know everything about him."

"It's just-"

"No, you know that's not just a coincidence. You're interested."

Suddenly Elisa heard a call from somewhere behind her, "Elisa!"

Elisa grabbed her friend's hand and pulled her into a side hallway. "Would you shut up, you know how Aiden gets when he hears you talking like that."

"Oh, please. You should just dump his sorry ass."

"Jenna!"

"What, you guys are like, ridiculous together. You have nothing in common, he doesn't even let you go to quidditch matches you aren't playing in. Always makes you study with him. Who let's their boyfriend do that to them?"

"It's all mutual, I could go to the matches if I want. I do, most of time."

"You do sometimes, and now that I think about it, you don't go to Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff matches. You only go to matches where Gryffindor is playing. Is it because of a certain-"

"Shut up!"

Suddenly Aiden walked by the hallway they were in.

He walked right by without looking down, walking right by his girlfriend and her best friend, who was trying to hold back from biting her friend's hand which was clasped over her mouth.

When she finally let go Jenna said, "You know hiding from your boyfriend is a sign"

"It is not, your just making comments that would make him upset."

"Because he would know they were true."

"They are not."

"We'll see."

* * *

The year passed quickly, and suddenly it was December.

Christmas time was always Elisa's least favorite time of year.

This year would be her seventh without her mother.

She will never forget when she got the news.

* * *

" _Ms. Nieves."_

 _Elisa had been writing a herbology essay in the library when a normally gravelly voice softly pulled her out of her herbology bubble. She looked up at Professor Snape and he beckoned for her to follow him._

 _He had an unreadable expression on, and she knew something was wrong._

 _He lead her through many twists and turns of the castle that she had yet to explore. When she found them standing outside the headmaster's office. Professor Snape muttered the password and lead Elisa up the spiraling staircase towards the headmaster's office._

 _Elisa was shocked to see the headmaster standing off the side of his desk, waiting, watching. She believed, for her._

" _Elisa, please sit down."_

" _Have I done something wrong sir?"_

 _Dumbledore watches her, "no, it's not you."_

 _A single tear rolled down the headmaster's cheek as he motioned to the chair in front of his desk, "please you need to sit down for this."_

" _Is everything alright? You're scaring me."_

" _I'm afraid everything's not alright. Horrible news has come to Hogwarts this morning. There was a break in at you house yesterday morning. Both of your parents were home. Unfortunately there was an incident, which resulted in the passing of you mother."_

 _Elisa was still._

 _No it could not be true._

 _What?_

 _Her mother._

 _How?_

 _Why?_

 _But she saw something in Dumbledore's gaze. That wasn't it._

" _What else."_

 _Her voice came out deathly quiet and she wondered where that came from._

" _It wasn't the perpetrator who killed her." Now his voice was quiet._

 _No._

" _Was it my father." Tears streamed down her face as the realization of what happened hit her like a hex._

" _It was."_

 _Suddenly she stood up. Turned towards the door and started going._

 _Snape stopped her just before the door._

" _Ms. Nieves. I know this is difficult for you-"_

" _I'm sorry Professor but I have to get to the library to finish researching the Devil's Snare."_

 _With that she left the room, went down the spiral staircase and went right back to the library to finish researching for her paper._

 _It was twenty minutes of staring at a book reading nothing when she started feeling tears prickling at the back of her eyes._

 _She hurried to put her books back on the shelves and gathered her things to hurry back to her dorm. She raced around the castle and when it was secluded enough near thee dungeon she decided it was okay to let the tears fall out of her eyes._

 _Of course it was then that she tripped on something._

 _She hurried to throw her hands on the ground, dropping all of her books and quills in the process. She now sat on the ground, tears streaking down her face and feeling like a fool._

 _Suddenly she let out a scream. A frustrated annoyed, 'my life sucks' scream._

" _Hey are you okay."_

 _A boy with flaming red hair stepped out of the shadows._

" _I'm fine, just go away."_

" _If you're okay, why are you crying?"_

 _She wiped her face quickly, "I'm not."_

" _Yes you are, here let me help you." With a quick wave of her wand he gathered all of her things in his hands and held them, then he stood up and grabbed her hand to help her up._

" _I'm Fred." The boys said, "I'm sorry about that, trip wire. It's my brother and my favorite. "_

" _Uh… yeah,"She wasn't used to this, talking from a peer, a Gryffindor no less._

" _Well, here you go. I hope you feel better."_

 _For a few seconds, she did._

* * *

That was the day Elisa had first met Fred. She would like to say finding out her mother had died made that the worst day of her life, but somehow she couldn't say that.

She usually got a kick out of seeing Fred and George's pranks play out. She would laugh along, even when it was someone of her own house.

It was funny, anyone who said differently was obviously lying.

Besides a few remarks in classes they shared sometimes, Fred and George barely noticed Elisa.

The next day he had asked Elisa if she felt better.

She didn't, but she said she did.

* * *

Soon Hogwarts grounds were empty for the holidays and Elisa was happy to have her dorm room to herself. However she found herself wanting to study.

She had a meeting with Snape a week before about her career. He had told her that she should do something in potion creating, and that she had the brain to do something good.

He told her to try to make something so she went to work researching ingredients to create a potion to change appearance. Of course, her main goal was to create a potion to cure madness that can come from The Cruciatus Curse. But she thought she should start slow.

This was her project for her yule break. Her previous ones being less than interesting.

Two hours of studying went by when suddenly a voice broke the complete silence of the library.

"Are you kidding me Nieves! Studying during Christmas break? When you practically have a whole castle to yourself."

"Sorry Weasley but _some_ of us have more important things to do than play around."

"But it's Christmas break, you don't _have_ to do anything."

Fred made his way over to the table she had spread her stuff over.

"What is all this. I don't think Professor Snape gave you guys _this_ much homework."

"It's not homework, it's a project. Professor Snape said that I would make a great potion creator, so he told me to try making one."

Fred looked over the books on the table.

"This is gibberous," Fred and Elisa started laughing, "But George would understand. He actually gets potions. He uses that to help with the inventions."

"I noticed he had a knack for stuff like this. He does better than most of the kids in the class. Of course, there are only like four kids, but he's better than two of them."

Fred starts laughing harder, doubling over until his head hit the table.

"But really, you need to have some fun, let me show you something."

* * *

That was when Fred decided to show Elisa his favorite spot at Hogwarts.

"Where are we going, it's cold out here."

"Just be patient. We're almost there."

Elisa couldn't help but notice how warm Fred's hand was compared to her freezing one. She was quick to shake that thought from her head.

"Here we are."

Fred turned her around to show a wonderful lake just barely frozen over. And the trees were bending in the wind.

Elisa's breath caught in her throat. It was amazing. She couldn't help but wonder why she hadn't known of this place before hand.

"Isn't it awesome?"

"It's beautiful. But how did you- what is this place?"

"Well, George and I are expert explorers. We just found it one day."

"Really?"

"Yeah, now I need to be somewhere, and you need to come with me."

Elisa eyed him with confusion, but he just beckoned her on.

* * *

"Really Elisa? You're name literally means snow and you're not going to come out for the first snowball fight of the year?"

"I told you Fred, Aiden needs me to study with him."

"No he doesn't, he just wants to keep you from having fun."

Elisa paused for a moment.

 _Was that true? Does Aiden really not want me to have fun?_

Now that she thought about it she realised how true it way be.

"Elisa!" She turned to see Aiden walking towards her furiously.

"Aiden!" She looked at Fred with a longing gaze as she realised, she wanted to have a snowball fight, "I'm sorry but I can't help you study today."

"Excuse me?" His tone got a little low, and she saw a fume starting behind his eyes.

"Yeah, Fred wants me to have a snowball fight with him, and I feel like I never have any fun, so I'm going to go."

"You are?" Fred asked, almost giddy.

"Yeah, _you are?"_ Aiden was not so happy, "Elisa, I am your boyfriend, so you _have_ to go with me."

"Excuse me? I don't _have_ to do anything."

Aiden got really close to her, "If you want to be my girlfriend you do."

"Than maybe I don't."

"I'm sorry?" Aiden's voice grew scarily loud, shouting in Elisa's face. Making Elisa jump a little.

Fred made a move and put his hand on her shoulder. She liked how gentle it felt.

"Maybe you should just leave mate." Fred said. Elisa was shocked about how authoritative it was.

"You can't tell me what to do with my own girlfriend."

Suddenly Elisa saw him grab for his wand.

This was not going to be good.

As quick as Aiden had his wand out, however, Fred also had his out.

Aiden sent a flash of light over to Fred and Elisa, Fred pushed me out of the way and blocked the beam as easily as a teacher would have.

Elisa was shocked. Of course everyone knew Fred and George were good with their hands, no one would ever guess they were equally as good with a wand.

Suddenly something red flashed through the air and landed on Aiden's head. It was a water balloon? Fred and Elisa looked up, it was Peeves.

"Thanks Peeves, I owe you one." Fred said to the Poltergeist.

"No problemo Freddy Boy, all in a day's work."

Fred then grabbed Elisa's hand and ran from the hallway all the way out the door to the grounds where George and Lee Jordan seemed to be waiting for them.

"Finally, now we can start."

"Elisa, you're on Lee's team. You guys can go first." Fred said, Elisa had absolutely no idea what was going on, but when Lee started running towards Hagrid's cabin she followed willingly.

"Ok," he called behind her, "we need to kill them. It's usually them against me, but now that the teams are matched we should be able to crush them."

"So, we just like, throw snowballs at them?"

"That's the plan."

* * *

The game was probably the most fun Elisa had had in a long time. And as they walked back inside to get ready for dinner Fred stopped her right outside the doors.

"Did you have fun?"

"Are you kidding!? This is the best day ever! She yelled and jumped. Fred couldn't help but notice how pretty she looked with her cheeks flushed and snow slowly melting in her hair. She jumped into him and wrapped him in a hug he didn't think could feel better.

She slowly released him, "Sorry."

"It's okay, I'm glad you had fun. And to think you've been avoiding me for seven years."

"I have not been avoiding you"

"Have too, ever since that day in first year. That was about this time wasn't it?"

"Uh… yeah, I'm surprised you remember that."

"Of course, it was the day I met you. Plus, not often do you remember time when a girl screams like a banshee after you trip her."

"I did not scream like a banshee, I was just overwhelmed."

"What was that about? You never did tell me."

"Oh, well I had just been told that my Mother… was killed."

Fred had a look of shock on his face that Elisa couldn't place.

"Are you kidding, I had no idea. I… I'm sorry I can't believe. Oh Merlin-" In his babbling Fred had turned green.

"Whoa, Fred, it's okay, you could never have known. I'm over it really."

"I just can't imagine."

"I can guess. I see you guys, it's like your mother thought you would never come back the way she smothers you."

Fred smiled a bit.

"Well what's your dad like."

"Kind of a mess. I try to leave him alone as much as I can, he thinks I am trying to remind him of her, so there's a lot of screaming usually."

"That's awful."

"Not really. I mean it was seven years ago, it's almost like that always how it's been now."

"That's the saddest thing I've ever heard."

Somehow, caring was so much more attractive on Fred. Elisa suddenly realised how close she was to Fred. She could feel his breathing on her face.

She looked Fred right in the eye and saw his pupils dilate staring back at her.

Then she did something she never would have thought she would ever do.

She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed Fred.

He responded immediately, wrapping his arms around her and tilting his head just the right angle. Her arms found her way around his neck as she felt the fairy-tale sparks fly between them.

Moments that felt like an eternity later they broke and Fred leaned his forehead against Elisa's. Both responding in stereo.

"Wow."


End file.
